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Groaning, Izuku raised his head from the pavement, every tiny motion horrifically painful despite the paralysis afflicting his body.
Across the street, half-buried under the same debris that piled across him, Ochako struggled up onto her palms valiantly, still mobile enough to fight, still standing firm.
Izuku wished he could move. Wished he could surge upright with a show of power, the familiar electric tingle of One For All sparking across his limbs like ominous lightning.
Instead he had to watch, helplessly, as the hulking villain closed on his friend, mechanical claw-like pincers snapping ominously.
The whipping scorpion tail lashing behind him had been his only obvious weapon at first. Large and bulky, disappearing under his clothes, they had assumed it was the fullness of his Quirk and had tried to avoid its strikes. But a glancing sting that had snapped across Izuku's arm had told them it wasn't something to mess with lightly. The paralyzing poison had sapped all power and strength from his limb, leaving it useless and limp against his side.
And that was before the claws came out.
The pro hero who had been accompanying them for this encounter, the closest one in range when they had reported the initial incident in, rushing to the scene to assist the two capable but still under-equipped students, was lying across the street in a pile of rubble, the villain's poison coursing through his veins, leaving him weakened and immobile as the villain continued to wreck havoc.
Izuku was still replaying the fight in his head, searching for alternate ways he could have moved, alternate methods he could have taken, instead of trying to get too close and getting an unlucky stab from the scorpion tail right in the base of his spine, leaving him locked up and weak and useless now as the man closed in on a frantic Ochako.
She was still trying to pry herself free of the cluster of debris that had dropped on her, when the villain's surprise mechanical claws had emerged to punch through concrete and steel, collapse a whole building on top of the three of them. Izuku could see her face screwing in pain, her back arching as she yanked at her legs, pinned under a wide metal support beam.
"U—Uraraka..." he strained, struggling underneath the crumbled rock across his own back. "You have to get out of here. Please," he begged, a frightened quiver in his voice. "Please just go. Escape. Now!" His voice got more frantic as he spoke, shrill notes creeping in. He was acutely aware of the villain's stalking presence, using his claws to pick through the extensive debris in search of them. "You have to get away!"
"D—dummy..." she said, pulling herself free from the pile and rising, shakily, to her feet, moving into a martial arts stance he recognized all too well from her practice sessions, arms up and at the ready, feet braced. "I'm not leaving you here to be killed," she declared with determination.
Izuku's voice strangled. Mixed admiration and terror closed up his throat, pinning him in place worse than the poison as he watched the tall, lumbering, hulk of a villain zero in on Ochako from across the ruined plaza, eyes alighting and fixating on her with a manic hunger, beginning to stalk over, every human footstep echoed by an ominous snap of his robotic metal claws.
"There you are, little doll," the man breathed, in a tone of voice that sent screaming tingles of fear down Izuku's arms.
Ochako herself paled a little, her raised arms wavering a tiny fraction, shaking minutely.
Seeing her fear, Izuku clenched his teeth, his curled fingers digging into the dirt and pavement, bracing, fighting back against the cold, suffocating numbness pressing him down.
The only response he got from his body were insignificant scuffles of his shoes as his feet shifted. Izuku panted and strained but couldn't make his limbs or Quirk obey, and now the scorpion-themed villain was looming over Ochako, mechanical claw drawn back.
"Uraraka move!" he screamed at her in warning.
She flung herself hard to the side as a punch like a flying timber beam slammed into the ground where she'd been. She gave a yelp, ducking under the lancing tail as the villain came about.
Her smaller size and her agility made it hard for the villain to track her, so for several tense moments she circled him, raising debris to use as projectiles, aiming them for his face and the weak joints of the mechanical claws.
Izuku watched, throat clenched tight and heart pounding. His fear skyrocketed when the villain decided to just sweep his right claw in a wide arc, catching Ochako in the stomach with the metal edge and tossing her like a featherweight ragdoll across the ruined plaza.
His throat strangled with an unheard scream, his voice lodging solidly against a block.
He could see the pink and white of her limbs splayed across the debris, her body unmoving. She looked so fragile and small, especially as the heavy footsteps of the villain lumbered past Izuku, paying him not a single second thought as he closed in.
Panicked worry and anger rang in shrill alarms inside Izuku's head.
"No..." he breathed thinly. "No no no no no, Uraraka get up! Get up!" he cried, calling out to her. "Please get up! Please!" he shrieked, fighting even harder against the paralysis. Tears burned behind his eyes, threatening at the edges. "Get up and fight! C'mon!" he begged her. "You gotta get up! Uraraka!"
She groaned, her eyes fluttering, turning her head but it was too late; with a heavy stab down the villain's mechanical pincers grabbed hold of her. She gasped, startled into alertness, her hands pushing down and straining at the block of metal pressing into her stomach as the villain lifted her up to eye level.
He sneered at her a moment before slamming her down against the ground.
"No!" Izuku shrieked, pressing his palms hard against the ground, a fury burning at the back of his head. "Leave her alone, leave her alone!"
Heat surged along his spine, fighting the cold numbness, and he could almost begin moving, almost.
The villain lifted Ochako again, dazed and groaning from the blow, her visor cracked, blinking eyes lolling around and finding Izuku's frantic gaze.
She smiled towards him, bravely.
Her eyes flicked back to the villain, her face firming into flat and cold determination.
He held her in his pincers like she was nothing but a nuisance, looking down his nose at her with haughty disdain. "You were fun to play with, little doll. Any last words?" he taunted.
She coughed once, lightly, then let her eyes drift up towards the sky.
"R—Release."
Her clenched fingers moved apart.
There was a rushing sound as something heavy moved through the air. The villain craned his head up, and then his eyes widened as he spotted the falling object moving rapidly towards him.
Izuku strained his neck up to see as well and watched in awe and fascination as a heavy support beam from the collapsed building shot straight down like a makeshift rod from god, streaking through the air.
The short side impacted heavily against the villain's clavicle, denting his plated armor and almost impaling him as it knocked him down, breathless. He tilted backwards into the ground, hitting his head hard, and Ochako was flung from the claw as it released open at the impact.
She skidded and rolled, coming to a stop yards away, sitting up and tensing in case she needed to fight further but it was done, it was over, the villain was senseless on the ground and unmoving, his scorpion tail limp.
Izuku choked back a sob, the heat moving through his body finally, finally overcoming the poison and sending sparks down his back and legs. He scrambled out from under the debris, fumbling, dropping to hands and knees as his limbs responded sluggishly, stumbling and tripping over himself as he dragged his body over to Ochako.
She was only just picking herself up and turning to meet him in concern, as he flung arms around her once he was finally close enough.
"Uraraka..." he strained out, his nose buried in her shoulder, his arms wrapped around her shoulders and holding onto her like a precious lifeline.
She returned the embrace, pressing palms to his shoulders as she hugged him. "I'm okay," she promised. "I'm okay, Deku. I—I stopped him," she said, hardly able to believe it herself.
"I know," he blubbered. "You were amazing."
The two teens broke down, sobbing, clinging to each other as the weight of their near-miss with death crashed over them, the police sirens and flashing lights white noise on their senses as patrol cars began to pull up.